Episode notes
What changes when a product leader steps into the chief revenue officer role after spending years on the other side of the business? For Dejan Leskaroski, Chief Revenue Officer at Mavenir, the transition has reinforced an important lesson: successful revenue leadership is not just about closing more deals. It is about winning the right opportunities, aligning teams around shared priorities, and making decisions that support long-term business growth.
Dejan joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson on Selling Intelligence to share how his 15 years in product management and earlier experience in telecommunications operations have shaped his approach to sales leadership. Having worked across product development, operational execution, and customer engagement, he explains why sales, product, and operations cannot function effectively in isolation. When teams understand how their individual objectives contribute to the broader business strategy, they become better equipped to make decisions that benefit both customers and the organization.
The conversation explores why winning a deal at any cost can create challenges beyond the sales organization. Dejan discusses how excessive customization, additional development requirements, and aggressive discounting can strain internal resources and limit future opportunities. Rather than focusing exclusively on bookings, he explains how sales leaders can work with product teams to structure agreements that meet customer needs while protecting profitability, delivery capabilities, and long-term growth potential.
Mark, KK, and Dejan also examine how revenue leaders can balance existing customer expansion with new business development, organize teams around strategic accounts, and navigate the competing priorities of innovation and financial performance. With emerging technologies such as AI introducing new opportunities and uncertainties, Dejan shares why evaluating business cases, challenging assumptions, and maintaining alignment across executive leadership are essential to making smarter investment decisions.
What You’ll Learn:
• Aligning Sales, Product, and Operations: Why successful revenue organizations need close collaboration across departments and how shared priorities help teams make better commercial decisions.
• Winning Deals That Support Long-Term Growth: How revenue leaders can evaluate opportunities beyond immediate bookings by considering customer fit, customization requirements, profitability, and future business potential.
• Structuring Deals Without Relying on Discounts: Why adjusting product features, functionality, and implementation requirements can help meet customer budgets while protecting margins and internal resources.
• Balancing Customer Expansion and New Business: How organizing sales teams around strategic accounts and regional opportunities can support existing customer relationships while pursuing growth in emerging markets.
• Connecting Innovation with Financial Performance: How CROs can navigate competing priorities between product investment, profitability, and revenue commitments while evaluating emerging technologies such as AI.
Key Topics:
• Transitioning from product management to chief revenue officer
• Connecting sales strategy with product and operational priorities
• Evaluating deal quality, customer fit, and profitability
• Managing customization requirements and engineering resources
• Protecting gross margins through strategic deal structuring
• Organizing sales teams around key accounts and regional markets
• Balancing customer retention, account expansion, and new opportunities
• Navigating innovation, financial commitments, and AI investment decisions
Guest Spotlight: Dejan Leskaroski
Dejan Leskaroski is the Chief Revenue Officer at Mavenir, a telecommunications software company, where he leads sales and marketing. His professional background includes approximately 15 years in product management and 10 years in telecommunications operations, giving him experience across product development, operational execution, and revenue leadership.
Having worked closely with sales teams throughout his product management career, Dejan brings a cross-functional perspective to the CRO role. His approach emphasizes aligning commercial priorities with product strategy, pursuing profitable customer opportunities, and ensuring sales decisions support the organization’s broader business objectives.
At Mavenir, he focuses on strengthening collaboration between sales and product teams, developing strategic customer relationships, and balancing revenue growth with innovation and financial performance in a rapidly evolving telecommunications industry.
Resources & Mentions:
• Mavenir: Telecommunications software company where Dejan Leskaroski serves as Chief Revenue Officer.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI): Discussed as an emerging technology influencing investment priorities, innovation strategies, and future opportunities in telecommunications.
• Satellite Connectivity: Identified as an evolving market opportunity within the telecommunications industry.
• Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G: Referenced as examples of technological developments that have shaped the telecommunications sector.
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak: Referenced in Dejan’s discussion of balancing innovation with business and financial priorities.
• Accelerant Growth Solutions (AGS): The company behind Selling Intelligence, supporting organizations in aligning sales, product, and business strategy.
🎧 Listen to this episode of Selling Intelligence with Dejan Leskaroski to discover how revenue leaders can pursue the right opportunities, strengthen cross-functional collaboration, and make smarter decisions that support profitable growth.
Follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with CROs, sales executives, and go-to-market leaders sharing practical insights on revenue strategy, sales leadership, and business growth. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you don’t miss Part 2, where Dejan explores what separates top-performing sellers and how he leads a large, experienced global sales team.
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Selling Intelligence (formerly Selling the Cloud) is hosted by Mark Petruzzi and Alan Rudolph.